


Then I'll Be Brief

by oxymoronassoc



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four verses, same as the fist. "Yea noise. Then I'll be brief. Oh, happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rust and let me die."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then I'll Be Brief

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Baz Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet

**IN A PERFECT WORLD: [OPEN, STAGE LEFT]  
“Civil blood makes civil hands unclean in fair Verona where we make our scene.” – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet**

He’s just a boy, a little more jaded maybe, or he thinks he is, but really he’s so utterly more idealistic because of his education and experience than he could ever imagine. If he could conceptualize himself (and he might, one day) he would be disgusted and might even cry with the shame of realization. 

Let’s start over. Let’s not judge him on where he’s been or what he’s seen or what he may have done. Let’s begin again.

 

 

**IN A PERFECT WORLD: [OPEN, STAGE LEFT]**

He’s a boy, walking along the street, who sees a girl. Perhaps he sees the girl or perhaps he just thinks he does. He is young, young enough he’s yet to realize the way the world has touched him.

Wait. Have we said too much about this boy once more? Should we start again? Should we think that all of us who have just recently come into the world, be it from our mother’s bosom or from some other harsher place, were born innocents without any prejudice towards one another? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. 

Third verse, same as the first:

 

 

**IN A PERFECT WORLD: [OPEN, STAGE LEFT]**

A boy sees a girl. She might be the one; she might not. But he sees her, his eye is drawn, and he moves towards her.

She’s up on a ladder, straining over the last rung to place each letter on a movie theatre marquee in precise alignment, totally absorbed in her job. A hank of blonde hair, neither straight nor curly nor truly wavy has slipped out of the edge of her cap and straggles down her shoulder, her back.

He hails her and she twists awkwardly on the ladder, staring down at him. It’s a look of irritation. Only she knows if it’s personal or just the aggravation of an artist interrupted in the middle of their work. She answers his questions tersely as she sizes him up. He’s important, somehow. She knows it. 

She is polite, but it is borderline.

He doesn’t notice; he is in love. In love with her cinema, with the heart-shape of her behind, with her exasperated expression, with her lock of hair that escapes her otherwise iron rule.

She should come on a date with him. He can feel the rightness of it in his gut. But she does not. She ignores him. She is polite but dismissive. He doesn’t get it:

DOESN’T SHE KNOW WHO HE IS?

 

\---

 

She doesn’t. She really doesn’t. Doesn’t matter what he’s done or who he is to make him Someone: the fact is, he is Someone and She Doesn’t Know. 

More to the point: She doesn’t care.

He doesn’t know what to do. Or who to tell. His so-called friends will laugh, and that is a bitter enough pill to swallow. Bile rises in his throat as she dismisses him and he realizes the truth: she is not bluffing.

Well...he isn’t either.

 

\---

 

There is some saying about friends in high places. That’s all he can really remember about it, except that it means something, so he sends a friend. From a high place. 

He asks her to lunch.

Well, he thinks he asks her to lunch. 

What he really asks her to is to her own funeral.

Well, the advance reception anyway.

 

\---

 

She goes to lunch because she has no choice.

She doesn’t dress up. It isn’t a conscious thing.

Or....maybe it isn’t.

Who knows.

And no one cares.

It’s all her and him and God he is awkward and then he fucking leaves.

Like God, that just takes the cake! Invites her, and ditches her. With him and, worst, him. His…uncle? Landa. Who smiles. And his stupid (his gross) friend Hellstrom leaves, touching her back again and she tries not to shudder but Landa, he fucking SMILES, and she doesn’t know what to do but smile back and then he offers her desert and like, she doesn’t even know for a moment what he means and the pit of her stomach has already dropped out and she has no sub-basement for it to go. The only place she can imagine is the dry-heave over her strudel and she knows that won’t fly so she swallows the bitter, metallic bile and smiles at Uncle Hans.

He encourages her to try the cream, try the cream. (Try the cream!) And she cannot refuse. So she tries it. It tastes like death in her mouth.

Uncle Hans puts his cigarette out into it.

She knows then: everyone dies.

She smiles. And stands up when he stands, nods her head. Her cheeks hurt from the artifice. He smiles back and she sees it. Something in his practiced, stiff bow. Something in the cool depths of his eyes.

She sees nothing. Absolutely blank nothing. And she smiles as she turns away, even as the bile rises again in her throat.

Everyone dies. But it’s not in vain.

 

\---

 

Last verse, same as the first.

**IN AN UTTERLY IMPERFECT WORLD: [OPEN, STAGE LEFT]**

 

 

[FREDDY crosses towards stage right, smoking a cigarette disdainfully. He peers off into the middle distance, quotes an adapted Shakespearean verse. The cigarette goes out in his fingers. He grimaces, stubs it out. He is dark haired and older than the traditional Romeo. His fringe flops into his eyes, centre parted. In the distance stands a bizarre Italianate stately home with Romantic French and German castle influences. He signals to his house members to remain hidden outside the gates. FREDDY enters the house of CAPULET with a smirk to the doorman.

He speaks no words, entering the ballroom unimpeded under the decoration of the military he wears. He scans the room for ANNA, who dances with MATT of Verona. He waits, watching. There is no anger, no boiling hate. Unknown to him, his kinsman HUGO has come into the room to watch from the balcony. 

The song changes and he slides effortlessly, like water, between MATT and ANNA. They dance and she smiles at him, like he is the world upon which her sun sets and rises. He smiles back in the same. 

The song ends. He cannot bear it. They slide into an elevator; kiss for two floors and part. They will see each other again.

For the next fortnight, they see each other again, inside and out. They laugh, they plan. Their families must not know. FREDDY enlists the help of HUGO, the partying fool and brilliant stratagem, to aid him in meeting once more ANNA CAPULET. Another party is held; it goes terribly wrong.

Simply put: they are betrayed. A Cat comes upon HUGO one night when he least suspects it. ANNA is taken away. FREDDY is sent to exile. Both pine. LORD HANS MONTAGUE plots, silent in his struggle to rein in his suddenly wild son. 

ANNA, aided by MATT and LORD ARCHIE CAPULET, plots too. She acts first, long before LORD HANS MONTAGUE. She swallows the poison, brought to her by LADY VON HAMMERSMARK, a servant of FREDDY, which places her in a temporary eternal sleep.

DANIEL HELLSTROM first hears of the message, from LADY BRIDGET VON HAMMERSMARK herself, but doesn’t listen to the whole message. He doesn’t want to. He is in the pocket of LORD HANS MONTAGUE. He betrays LADY VON HAMMERSMARK with a call to LORD HANS before rushing to FREDDY with the news of the death of ANNA.

FREDDY hears the message of his kinsman and rushes to where his lady lays in wait. He is allowed to be alone with her and laments her deceased state before taking his pistol from where it has been stashed in the back waistband of his trousers and shooting himself three times in the head. His fingers twitch as he bleeds upon the red bridal gown of the HOUSE OF CAPULET. 

ANNA awakens moments later, unknowing that some of the red that stains her gown crimson is that of the husband she married in secret only days before. She cries out, raising a blood-drenched hand and swearing vengeance against the house of MONTAGUE. She lifts FREDDY’s gun to her temple, tears streaming down her face…]

**ANNA:** A PLAGUE UPON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

[She discharges the gun once, to make sure, then squeezes at her temple three times, just in case.

Outside the chapel, battle rages. CAPULETS fight MONTAGUES. Inside the cinema, CAPULETS slay the leaders of the HOUSE WHAT THAT RULES THE HOUSE OF MONTAGUE. Outside the cinema, the forces do follow the command, but only because of it, rather than of it. The MONTAGUES are defeated, forevermore. HELLSTROM lays slain upon the fountain by LORD ARCHIE CAPULET. In turn, the LORD ARCHIE sprawls ingloriously across the pavement, victim of the opposing house. LADY VON HAMMERSMARK lays dead in her chambers, allegedly poisoned but one knows the truth: LORD HANS CAPULET.

LORD HANS cuts a deal with the advisor to the PRINCE. He thinks it in the bag. He is wrong. He shall be screwed one last time by these operatives of the PRINCE. Victory seems assured. The war of the houses is over. The PRINCE OF VERONA speaks…] 

**PRINCE:** Rebellious subjects! Enemies to peace! Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground!

 

_You left a bloodstain on the floor,_  
You set your sights on him,  
You left a handprint on the door  
Like all the boys before;  
This is our luck, baby, running out. 


End file.
